I write this with some regret, but it is increasingly clear that the UK does not fit in at all to the European Union and it needs radically to modify its membership terms and establish a new and different relationship. As Peter Hitchens recently wrote, “No other EU nation (apart from Ireland, a sad and separate story), is remotely like us, politically, economically, legally or culturally”. For a generation, we have ignored or denied this inconvenient reality. We can bob and weave no longer, for our own good and for that of the EU.
My regret derives from the enthusiasm for Europe I once felt in the 1960s and 1970s, when I blandly believed the assurances from the bien pensant political elite that the economic prospects of the UK would improve if it traded more with prosperous and dynamic Europe and was less dependent on its traditional trade with the Commonwealth. The way forward was not easy. Britain was needled by former Secretary of State Dean Acheson’s 1962 observation that; “Britain has lost an Empire, but has not yet found a role”. Britain had not even attended the Messina conference which led up to the 1956 Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the Common Market, inspired by 3 devout Catholics, whose first language was German – French Robert Schuman from Luxembourg and Lorraine, Italian De Gasperi from the Tyrol and German Adenauer from Cologne. When non-German speaking and Protestant Harold MacMillan made a sustained effort to join the Common Market, de Gaulle vetoed UK entry in 1963 and repeated his veto in 1967, much to our chagrin.
It was not until de Gaulle left the scene that Heath was able to negotiate a deal in 1973, probably a substantially worse one than would have been available in 1963. Joining the Common Market was sold to the electorate as the UK merely becoming part of a customs union, liberalising European trade and cooperating on standards. The UK had already devalued, gone metric and the sterling area was withering, but in the 1970s, despite the boost of North Sea oil, the UK economy was languishing feebly (remember the 3-day week and Healey rattling his begging bowl at the IMF?) and the Common Market was the only game in town. The UK politicians concealed or glossed over two phrases in key documents which might have given them pause. The UK, as a candidate nation, had endorsed a 1972 declaration that member states: “resolve…to move irrevocably towards Economic and Monetary Union”, not to mention the commitment to “ever closer union” set out in the preamble to the original 1956 Treaty of Rome. The UK government pooh-poohed these phrases as typically airy Continental rhetoric, but for Euro-enthusiasts they were seriously meant and would return to haunt us. We were lured (deliberately?) into entry by a false prospectus.
To some extent the UK’s pattern of trade did change and we became an important importer of European goods and exporter to Europe of UK goods. But a large downside in the early years was the Common Agricultural Policy, the CAP, protecting French and German farmers and excluding produce from the old Commonwealth and from the less developed world. The UK waged a wearying war against the CAP, eventually achieving some success but huge amounts of the EEC’s treasure was spent subsidising rich European farmers and still is. Imperfections in the common market mechanisms, notably bureaucratic obstacles to competition in the services sector (of critical importance to the UK) persisted, and after many years there was a dilatory drive to perfect the Single European Market. At around the same time in 1989, moves were made to impose common labour and employment laws, known as the Social Chapter, and these arrangements were adopted by most of the EU nations, although the UK opted out. Margaret Thatcher protested volubly in her landmark Bruges speech and warned the less developed members that they were falling into a trap, increasing their costs and losing any competitive advantage they may have vis-à-vis Germany. These words were to prove prophetic.
The long line of Euro-enthusiasts running from Jean Monnet, through Spaak and including Commission Presidents like Hallstein, Ortoli, the cultured but overfed figure of Roy Jenkins, Delors and Barroso worked to centralise and integrate the EU, claiming the authority of the two phrases above. Democratic accountability was minimal as the European Parliament had limited powers and even less authority. At first UK opposition to European entanglements was confined to the “Loony Left” typified by Foot and Benn and by jingoistic backwoods Tories. By the 1980s more principled and sane opposition came from Labour’s Peter Shore and Tory Norman Tebbit, later to be fortified by Norman Lamont and John Redwood. Their voices remained a minority but after the later Thatcher years, the Tories moved towards a mild Euro-scepticism and Howe, Heseltine, Lawson and Clarke lost influence.
Economic integration has been the greatest stumbling-block. The 1992 Maastricht Treaty set the stage, developing the idea of European Monetary Union (EMU). Britain had joined the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) establishing a fixed rate with the deutschmark, but tumbled out again later in 1992 on “Black Wednesday”, a political disaster for the Major regime, but blessed relief for the economy. Opinion was moving against more integration and the UK declined to join the Eurozone on its inception in 1999. Since 2008 the Eurozone has been in crisis after a period of prosperity, but despite Blair’s enthusiasm, Brown happily prevented the UK joining it later and there is now no appetite whatever for such a move.
The Euro crisis has provided a catalyst. We have observed from our semi-detached vantage point the dominance of Germany, the weakness of France, the feebleness of Spain and Italy, the desperation of Portugal and Ireland, the corruption and collapse of Greece, made worse by the ineptitude of Brussels. We wish the EU nations well but we want to rule ourselves and have no desire or need for the budgetary and fiscal union now proposed. Let them go down that road towards an eventual United States of Europe, if they so wish. We must not get sucked deeper into the unwieldy EU quagmire and must soon negotiate an Associate status, hopefully retaining many of the trade advantages of full membership.
Associate membership of the EU would suit us well enough. Prophets of doom say we are highly dependent on exports to Europe, but remember it is a two-way street. The UK is a key market for Germany, Benelux, Ireland and Italy and they will want to protect their own trade. The US remains our largest trade partner. Closer integration with the US, Ireland and the old Commonwealth would be more attractive, given our common language, legal systems and culture but sadly few in the US express any interest, though our defence links remain strong. We can develop our relationships with the famous BRICs and prosper mightily as an independent offshore island on the model of Japan.
Europe was a noble experiment for Britain, which looked fine on the drawing-board but did not work out in practice. We do not eat, live, do business or think like continental Europeans. We live in an open society, not a statist one and it has served us well. The mark of a competent politician is to change his mind when the facts proclaim the necessity. The hour for change has struck; let’s get on with it.
SMD
22.01.2012
Copyright Sidney Donald 2012
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